Pages

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

What the World Was Watching: Monday Night Raw - September 5, 1998

by Logan Scisco

-Since USA Network
was broadcasting the U.S. Open in primetime, Monday Night Raw got bounced out
of its usual slot for the next two weeks.
USA compensated by giving RAW two late Saturday night slots that ran
from 11:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. EST, so our next two shows will be those
broadcasts. Ross and Lawler make sure to
issue sarcastic statements about the “riveting” tennis action that is currently
keeping the WWF off of Monday nights throughout the show.

-Some narrated
pictures of last night’s SummerSlam main event are shown.

-Jim Ross and Jerry
“The King” Lawler are in the booth and they are taped from New Haven,
Connecticut.

-Vince McMahon
walks out and announces at the next pay-per-view, Breakdown, that his plan to take
the WWF title off of Steve Austin will be realized. He says the Undertaker is a damned fool for
refusing his brother’s help at SummerSlam and makes fun of Steve Austin’s
appearance on Regis and Kathy Lee.
McMahon calls the Undertaker and Kane two “putrid pussies” and that
leads the Undertaker and Kane to storm the ring, so McMahon has to flee through
the crowd. The best part of this
segment? No entrance music for the
Undertaker and Kane before they run out.
However, it was a rather dull promo from someone of McMahon’s
caliber. 0 for 1

-Opening
Contest: Ken Shamrock & Steve
Blackman fight The Disciples of Apocalypse (w/Paul Ellering) to a no contest
when the Undertaker & Kane interfere at 1:28:

Evidently, Shamrock and Blackman have made up after last
week’s altercation. The DOA are really
stale at the moment and desperately need some more direction aside from “we
have Paul Ellering as a manager and hate the LOD.” This match never gets going as Kane and the
Undertaker come out and destroy Blackman’s knee.

-Val Venis is shown
having relations with a young woman in a bathroom stall.

-Ross and Lawler
recount the beating Mankind received during and after his tag team title match
against the New Age Outlaws at SummerSlam.
Ross says that Mankind has not been seen since.

-Val Venis
wrestles Vader to a no contest at 3:32:

During the match, Dustin Runnels carries a sign through
the crowd urging people to repent. Vader
dominates Venis with power moves, but the match is interrupted by Bradshaw, who
has a dispute with Vader stemming from an attempted tag team partnership on
Shotgun Saturday Night. This match, like
our opening bout, is interrupted by the Undertaker and Kane and they proceed to
destroy Venis and Vader. You would think
Vader would have enough sense at this point to avoid the Undertaker and
Kane. Rating: ½* (0 for 2)

-Michael Cole
interviews the Rock and Mark Henry, who are facing the New Age Outlaws for the
WWF tag team titles. The Rock promises
to lay the smackdown on both of the Outlaws.

-Cole interviews
WWF Tag Team Champions The New Age Outlaws, who push Cole aside and cut a
ranting promo. They let Billy Gunn
handle most of the promo work here and that’s just not a good idea.

-WWF Tag Team
Championship Match: The Rock & Mark
Henry defeat The New Age Outlaws (Champions) via disqualification when Chyna
interferes at 7:01:

Conventional TV tag here, with the Road Dogg being placed
in peril, but avoiding a Henry splash to give the hot tag to Billy Gunn. When all hell breaks loose, Chyna runs in and
tackles Henry to get revenge for last week and that brings this contest to an
end. Rating: **¼ (1 for 3)

-Tiger Ali Singh
and Baby come out. Babu is eating
sardines, which Singh says he has been doing for four days. Babu picks a woman out of the crowd, who is
not wearing a bra, and she gets $600 for French kissing Babu for five
seconds. After the woman finishes her
task, the Undertaker and Kane interrupt and chokeslam Singh and Babu. Is Singh ever going to get in the ring? 1 for
4

-Southern Justice
beat The Headbangers when Dennis Knight pins Mosh after the Problem Solver
(a.k.a. The Slop Drop) at 4:42:

The WWF is trying really hard to make the fans forget
that Southern Justice used to be the Godwinns, but it just isn’t working. This is the Headbangers first RAW match in
quite a while. The Headbangers don’t get
in much aside from some token offense, as Southern Justice beats them down and
then uses a distraction finish to pick up the win. These two teams just do not gel at all. Rating: ½* (1 for 5)

-The Undertaker and
Kane arrive outside of Mr. McMahon’s door and cannot get in. Kane takes a sledgehammer to the door and
breaks it down, but McMahon is not there.

Lawler is pretty funny on commentary talking about how
D-Lo’s chest protector constricts his movements and how he has to overcome a
great deal in the ring by using it. This
match has an accelerated pace, which usually foreshadows interference, and sure
enough, Jeff Jarrett does a run-in before X-Pac can get a three-count after an
X-Factor. How many interference finishes
can we have tonight? Rating:
* (1 for 6)

-After the bell,
Jarrett and X-Pac brawl through the crowd and the Undertaker and Kane hit the
ring to go after D-Lo. The Rock runs to
the ring to defend his friend and hilariously tells off the Undertaker and
Kane, but ends up getting beaten down.
D-Lo doesn’t stick around and runs away.

Some idiot fan thinks they are at an ECW show and tries
to give Edge their chair as he heads to the ring. We can ANOTHER screwy finish as Gangrel
attacks Edge after he planchas onto Mero on the floor. Both men brawl in the ring as Kane and the
Undertaker attack Mero by the entrance.

-The first part of
Jim Ross’s interview with Al Snow is shown.
It recaps his rise in ECW and Snow says that the voices that he hears
are like the voice of God that he has opened his mind to hear. The reasoning given for Snow talking to Head
is that bad gimmicks drove him insane.
Good interview in flushing out Snow’s character and his
motivations. 2 for 7

-Kane and the
Undertaker are shown walking around backstage and in a nice piece of
logical storytelling, it is deserted since no one else wants to become a victim.

-The Insane Clown
Posse comes out with the Oddities and perform the Oddities theme music. Hawk, who is supposed to be with Animal and
Droz, comes out and in a drugged up state dances with them in his LOD 2000
helmet. I feel bad for laughing at this,
but can’t help it.

When Violent J won’t dance with Hawk, he attacks him
before joining his partners on the apron.
Hawk tags himself in, but he is in no shape to compete and gets pinned
after all hell breaks loose. The match
was not very good, but this continued the troubled Hawk storyline.

-The Undertaker and
Kane beat up a kid who is working on production in the locker room.

Los Boricuas is still a thing at this point? If you weren’t watching Shotgun Saturday
Night, these guys were as good as gone from the company. Ross is so bored by this show he starts
ranting about misinformation about wrestling on the Internet. If anyone had a reason to care about these
teams, this match would come off better.
Rating: *¾ (3 for 8)

Jarrett debuts his new ring look here, no longer wearing
the long pants and top that he was synonymous with. That new look is all he has, though, as I am
just not feeling this feud he has going with X-Pac. Scorpio makes this interesting with some
rollups, but he misses a moonsault. When
Jarrett goes to finish, X-Pac runs in and we get yet another disqualification
finish for a match tonight. They
couldn’t even give Jarrett a victory to bolster his new character? Rating: *½ (3 for 9)

-After the bell,
Kane and the Undertaker hit the ring and destroy Scorpio with a spike
Tombstone. McMahon watches the display
with joy by the entrance, but runs when the Undertaker and Kane see him.

The Final Report Card: Was this Shotgun Saturday Night or Monday
Night Raw? I don’t mind that they
decided to showcase some different talents on this show, which was not going to
draw a great rating anyway, but did we have to get so many no contests and
interference finishes? The Undertaker
and Kane destroying everything in their path made sense, but really ruined the
show by the second hour because you thought they would be coming out and
interfering in every match. If anyone
EVER tries to tell you that Steve Austin was not important in 1998 WWF, just
let them watch this show. It’s Exhibit A
for why he made the company so awesome during this time. Without question, this is the worst RAW of
the year up to this point.

17 comments:

Midcard Mafia should know better thann to test the Job Mob (patent pending). Last night i was surfing the Milky Way, doing chin-ups off the rings of Saturn. When you step outside time you can see all possible endings, and i saw nothing but total providence for Jobber and the rest of the Job Mob. As soon as these walls stop dancing i'll be roasting a bone andd plotting our revenge strategy. Buy the ticket, take the ride boys. When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

So my dad was in the hospital and I decided to watch Raw before going to visit him. Raw goes off and I head to the hospital. It was after visiting hours but no one at the front desk seemed to give a damn. The door was cracked so I walked on in and he was laying there with his black eyes staring at me like in that "Crossroads" video. I start freaking out yelling at nurses and stuff to do something. They all just ignored me like they deal with that stuff on the daily. I'm not sure how long he had been dead but I hate to think I missed him cause I just had to watch this crappy Raw.

My brother went to either this show or the Dark Side wedding a few months later in 1999, because he mentioned there being a Heat taping prior to the show. Of course, he also mentioned his friend pouring his slushy on the guy in front of him during Undertaker's entrance because it was pitch black, and it appears he didn't have his traditional entrance during this show, so it was likely the 4/99 one.

Vince's "can we move this along please" as Sir Mo struggles to read the scroll might be the only highlight of this Godforsaken show. That and the ball of garbage hitting King Mabel square in the forehead.

"The Heartbreak King," it was RIGHT THERE, lol...man, 1995 was fucked.

That's some ass backwards logic, given that Bradshaw before the JBL gimmick was given A MILLION CHANCES to get over as a singles guy, and flopped on those.

GIving them a chance would be fine IF there was a possibility of them drawing money. With JBL that possibility did NOT exist. People still saw Bradshaw as JTTS before JBL and no amount of covering that up could POSSIBLY make people forget that.

They weren't gonna put much effort into a Saturday late night raw. Also hhh austin and foley were out from injuries. I agree though that wwe main event talent was thin. Thank god rock emerges in the next live raw along with foley.